Missing the Point

I need to get out of the service industry. Channing Tatum should not have the job he wants, when people like me with actual talent and skills languish in underemployment hell. Why am I complaining when I have only filled out one online job application int he last 10 months you ask? That's beside the point.

Same Phone, New Leaf

Apparently, Verizon doesn't stock this model of phone anymore. So I'm still without an at symbol, a return/enter button, or a working P. I have to paste my Ps into text. So that's fun. As for the new leaf, I submitted a short story to Games Workshop's Black Library for their "Treacheries of the Space Marines" anthology. I'm excited, and will be publishing the story on my no longer secret blog if I don't hear from GW. I'm also excited because at 4 pm today, LL and I will have been together for one whole frigging goddam year!

A Last Blog From This Phone...

...Before I get a new, refurbished smart-ish phone. The bus is almost as fast as a cab at this time of night. Few are riding which results in less pulls of the stop request cord, and few are waiting resulting in less stops per block. I still wonder what the point was in having three stops in sight of each other. There is at least one two-block section of this route where the stops are less than a block from each other. No wonder the bus is always late, or off the schedule, there are stops every twenty feet.

Some People Owe Me Some Serious Money

My brother just got engaged. I win.

Taking All My Time

The Genius has another minion with which to dominate his realm! I tickled her feet, and she yawned at me! ADORABLE.

Temp Slave

I've been reading the Best Of lately, I hope I can make you as angry as it has made me. Again. You'll thank me later.
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

It Is a Job

All right. You've heard the speeches, you've heard the spiel. I don't give a shit about any of that. You see this salt shaker? You see this pepper shaker? You see this sugar caddy? You see these ketchups, and these mustard bottles? Memorize this shit. This is how the boss wants it, and this is how I want it. This clean table? I want to eat off it. If you can't or won't work to these specifications, the door is over there. Walk out, you're not needed here. I'll wait. Yeah, OK. You may be thinking, and I know you are, fuck it I'm a server, I don't need this stress. I'll say only this, stress!? You don't know stress, the food runner rolls your silver, and busses your tables. All you need to do is sell, sell, sell, and we recognize that. Which is why we have Rodrego, and Antonio. So man up, or ovary up, and handle your shit or leave. If you don't want to do the minimal amount of work ask besides selling, leave! You, me, him, her, we're infinitely replaceable! Our main skills are being funny, and having a nice smile! Don't kid yourself, I could be gone next week, so do your fucking job, and be happy with the total lack of job stress you take home. And table five is running low, so bring them another round, and make them think it was their idea. We earn $2.77 not because our bosses deliberately want us to be stuck in the unending rut of poverty and restaurant work, but because we rip off fools like those five popped-collar assholes at table seven! We sell an illusion! So get selling, and suck it up, or quit. *And this is when I threw out all my ideals.*
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

In August

Frikkin' AUGUST.

Seth Rogen and Some Ladies?

Spotted at a bar in Dupont Circle. Is that really Seth Rogen and some interns, or is that a lucky look-alike?

Inception

Every now and then, a movie will remind us of the specific power of the medium. Inception is beautiful, moving, and exciting while staying balanced. Too much action and it would have fallen so easily into the absurd, and too much exposition would have forced it too far into the cerebral. There are Cartesian moments of existentialism, mixed with appropriate dollops of gunplay. You'll never read Celebrity Dream Cameos the same way. The Genius recommends this movie to everyone whose lifestyle does not include daily doses of hallucinogenic or psychotropic drugs.

Psychic Octopus vs Menta-parrot

Today and tomorrow we'll find out whether a brain that is among the smallest proportionate brain in existence, the smallest belonging to Pinko Punko, is more powerful than a brain that is roughly half of the total body mass. In somewhat mostly related news, I have been ready for the World Cup to be over for about two weeks. I am grateful for the huge piles of cash I made, and the weight I've lost, and the muscles gained, but I'm ready for some time in my bed, or on a beach, or even in front of a beach screensaver. It's nice having two month's expenses in the bank, and being to stroll through the morning's puddles in my new gore-tex Vasques, but damn I'm tired. In six weeks, I've earned three month's rent and bills, lifted a metric ton of dirty dish bins, 4,500 pounds of beer in kegs, and served a conservatively estimated 1,500 people an average of 8 beers each. And my friends are wondering why I am so tired at their parties. I'll be in San Francisco in mid August, contact me through the usual front or back channels if you want to hang, or buy me drinks. Toronado is definitely on the list, as is Mayflower(Marigold, whatever that one brewpub is called on Haight?), as is some other place that fulliecakes will get all jealous over missing. Probably the Anchor Brewing Company tour.

Good Government

I wonder if this post will work from my phone.

Coffee and Soccer

I'm starting my second of six straight weeks of opening early for the World Cup, and I&'m either being slowly brainwashed, or am too tired to think about anything but soccer. I am drinking a terrible cup of coffee from Casa de Maxwell, and am actually interested in the Ghana/Australia match. I've heard it said that a good cup of coffee is a beautiful thing, and a horrible cup of coffee stirs the sense memories of every good cup you've ever had. This could apply to other things in life, sex, love, relationships, meals, walks, etc, but doesn't seem to apply to sporting events. People, or at least sportscasters, talk about other amazing plays after watching one, and other disasters after watching a team collapse. I'm not really sure where I'm going with this, but the coffee is almost as bad as that last call in the USA/Slovenia game.

How About That

Hey, how about that zuzuvela, or vuvuzela, or zuzuburu, or whatever? Reminds me of the Summer of Cicada (Brood X Edition). Or a swarm of angry bees.

One of The Many Rules of Reality

The higher the praise you receive in the earliest round of any competition "reality" gong-show, the faster you will be eliminated. Corollary rule: don't expect me to watch any of these shows and remain sober. Or sane.

Brief Review of The Road

Less depressing than the book, but don't say I didn't warn you.

The Awesome Life

So I'm showered, dressed, out of the house, sitting in a chocolate and coffee shop, listening to a gaggle of lovely dames discuss their grandmother's jewelry, and life couldn't better. If I could upload photos with my phone, the Mike Meyer's size mocha in front of me would epitomize the depth of my contentment. This cup of coffee violates my First Rule of Consumption: Never eat anything bigger than your head without fulsome watching. I'm not violating the Thirty-Seventh rule either, but that's an obvious rule: Never eat without bragging to the internet. Here I am digressing again. The town itself is lovely, as my mother would say, and the square has everything you need, a head shop, a shoe store, a coffee shop, a toy store, a couple two three restaraunts, and a rib place. There's high-speed internet somewhere in town, but not at this cafe, which is fine, and an old stone courthouse. The little old ladies say the barbershop "past the shoestore and Baumgartner's" is the place I should go. Right now, my hair is lost somewhere in the wilderness of the tri-state area between Biker-Bartenderistan, Emoria, and Mullet.

Chicago via Monroe

It's 800-some miles to Monroe, we've got a full-ish tank of gas, one bag of baby carrots, twenty-seven cds, it's getting dark, and we don't have any sunglasses. Hit it.

Cop Week! Yay!

There are at least 35,000 tourists in DC until next Monday. 35,000 of these tourists are police officers, or lieutenants, or detectives, their rank is rather irrelevant compared to the majority's behavior. They walk into your bar like they own the place, act like jackasses, drink Miller Lite in a bottle, and tip like college students. I need to get a day job.

Where I Was Last Night

Part of My Manliness

My manliness, the general quality of me being the man that I am, manifests itself in several ways that are always obvious to others, and some less obvious. I see the world differently than most humans. I took part in a recent survey about my worldview, and even made it onto the blog post. Try and guess which Miscellaneous answer was mine.

FREE MONEY FROM THE GOVERNMENT!!!!1!!1!111!

Get FREE MONEY FROM THE GOVERNMENT without bankrupting a mortgage bank! I just walked past Matthew Lesko, in his famous question mark suit, while on my way to work. I doubt he will attempt to get me fired.

Haha, Fooled You!

Here's a great joke to play on April Fool's: ask me to work another double shift in a row at 1:30 am. I'll agree to just about anything until my brain catches up to the conversation. Earlier in the evening, two people asked me to cover shifts that I was already scheduled for, and I agreed to work for them. Five minutes later, I remembered that I was scheduled for those shifts, and was then able to crush their dreams of seeing Whitney Houston and Rob Zombie Live at the Prince William County Drive-In Dinner Theater, so that was fun.

UPDATE: Maybe it's not a prank, the same two people just asked me to cover the same two shifts again this week. The boss has also repeated his previous request that I work those same two nights in a different capacity. This would be funny if I weren't so tired.

Kevin Smith?

Ever since Clerks 2 or X or whatever this guy seems to be slowly trying to hide his name. Both Zack and Miri Make a Porno and now Cop-Out have had a surprising lack of "Hey look a new Kevin Smith movie!" advertising. I remember once feeling for Kevin Smith the way I feel about new Apatow and Apatow-related movies. What happened to this guy? I mean, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back wasn't bad enough to warrant a complete fade into obscurity and lame movies. Was Jersey Girl so terrible? I didn't see it.

Is That Clip-Art?

I'll be outside pondering the imponderables, like this movie.

Cause for Celebration, I Guess

Brett Feauvreaux, or whatever, you go right back to heLLO my parents read this. Ahem.

Today's Word of the Day

in*al*ien*a*ble /ɪnˈeɪlyənəbəl, -ˈeɪliə-/ [in-eyl-yuh-nuh-buhl, -ey-lee-uh-] –adjective not alienable; not transferable to another or capable of being repudiated: inalienable rights.

Senator-Elect Brown should do some reading, and remember the sadly alleged principles by which this country was founded.

Upstaged on a Tarantula Tuesday

Sometimes, I sit down in my creaky chair, open up my browser, and the words just deluge forth in a way that I find a relief and you find an entertainment. Other times the flow is stunted, viscous, oozing, but I can usually wrest some laughs from the primordial thought sump. Today, I was entirely upstaged while drinking my coffee. This clip ruined me:

I'm Not Crotchety Anymore

Comment #2 (Posted by Warduke)
I'm not going to comment on whether the Simpsons is better or worse now or 15 years ago - that's up to personal taste. What I do want to comment on is that I don't think there's ever been a generation so poised to become crotchety old men as this one. We're barely in our 30s and we're already saying "Back in my day....". We're the most pampered and privileged generation of all time, and it turned us all into little bitches with "action figures".

But not because of this guy. Still, the comment is bang on target.

Quick Note Before the Full Return

"...when Democrats get caught saying racist remarks, an apology is enough..." - Michael Steele on today's Meet the press.

He neglected to mention that when a Democrat is caught in flagrante delecto, only a resignation or impeachment will purge the party's shame, while a prayer session or two is enough for Republicans. I missed Tim Kaine's remarks after the above comment, but if they weren't as biting, then what the hell good is he?